224 swanton: institutional marriage , 



Tribes with two exogamous divisions are fairly numerous. 

 Aniong such may be mentioned the Iroquois, the Choctaw and 

 Chickasaw, the Haida, and the Thngit, and there are traces in 

 other parts of North America. Tribes with three exogamous 

 divisions are rare, but perhaps further investigation would show 

 that the three Delaware totems were of this character. 



In still other tribes we have several clans, but it must be 

 remembered that not all of these clans intermarried freely, 

 certain clans being linked together into phratries, and beyond 

 this each tribe with several clans often consisted of several towns 

 in which not all of the exogamous groups were represented. 

 Thus in the case of the Creek Indians it happened that there 

 were probably few towns which contained more than six or 

 eight exogamous groups and of these some were so insignificant 

 or so slimly represented that there were in most cases not more 

 than four or five exogamous divisions of real importance, and 

 it was between these that nine-tenths of the marriages took 

 place. Such being the case it is evident that in any line of 

 descent there would be a frequent repetition of certain exog- 

 amous groups, although the far greater number of clan names 

 would tend to obscure the fact. 



Now, although we can not know positively it is possible that, 

 if we could plot the succession of exogamous groups, we should 

 have a somewhat regular alternation. If we assume four exog- 

 amous divisions represented by the clans Wolf, Panther, Bear, 

 and Deer, descent being in the female line, we would have the 

 husbands of Wolf women drawn successively from the Panther, 

 Bear, and Deer clans, while in the male line we might have the 

 regular sequence W^olf, Panther, Bear and Deer. It is probable 

 that something approximating this may have existed among the 

 tribes with many clans such as the Chippewa and other central 

 Algonquian peoples, the Creeks, the Pueblos, Navaho and 

 Tsimshian; but for lack of careful investigation, we cannot say 

 so with absolute certainty. Still we do know that such a 

 sequence was bound to occur with tribes of three exogamous 

 groups and something near it would happen with four, for it 

 must be for the women's husbands successively Bear or Deer, 



